Patient pee in lunchbox in South Africa goes viral

October 16, 2018

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A picture posted by a patient in Frere Hospital, Eastern Cape, South Africa showing how she had to pee in her lunchbox has gone viral over the weekend.

According to the patient who shared her humiliation on Facebook, “At Frere Hospital we are allowed to pee 3 times a day after each meal. If you have a pee between or after those meal time you won’t be helped. Some old people… get punished by sitting the whole day in their wet beds or not given other night scrubs.”

The patient, Sinethemba Joya told the Daily Dispatch that in her ward, patients were given bedpans by nurses only after each meal and bathtime. Unfortunately, “I missed the 4 a.m pee time and now its past 9 a.m so I had to use my lunch box to relieve myself cause we haven’t eaten breakfast so I can be helped after meal,” she wrote on Facebook.

The provincial department of health responded immediately as they got informed about Joya’s post. The department’s spokesperson, Lwandile Sicwetsha, told Daily Dispatch “We have stepped in and listened to the complaints of the patients. These complaints are totally unacceptable and it is not the way patients should be treated at the hospital.”

He also said they have asked the hospital management to checkout the conduct of the nurses working in the said ward and make sure corrective measures are put in place to uphold “the dignity and rights of the patients.”

Joya was involved in a taxi crash on her way back from burying her father. The taxi crash that happened on way back to Cape Town from King William’s Town left eight persons dead.

She said she was tired of begging nurses to take care of her and decided to seek for help on Facebook by sharing her pain. “Nurses kept coming in and I would shout for a bedpan, telling them that I wouldn’t be able to hold it in until after 9am, but they just ignored me,” she said.

“Thank you guys for sharing the post. The manager came by to listen to my complaint and they will continue Monday. I will keep you all updated,” she said in a comment on her post.